Review: RAMBERT / BEN DUKE - DEATH TRAP, Sadler's Wells

Rambert dance company and Ben Duke have, in Death Trap, explored what it means for a dance company who live to dance. In this meta comedy, they test the notion through the idea that they could literally dance themselves to death.

In Cerberus, first performed in 2022, Aishwarya Raut, a member of the company, opens the performance with a dance which tells the story of life. She explains her appearance represents birth, the stage is her life, and to exit stage left will represent her death. However, things take a turn when Antonello Sangirardi discovers that her stage exit has not taken her backstage, but she has actually been taken to the underworld.

Cerberus plays with familiar concepts of death such as the constant marching of time and inescapable fate and morbidity. Romarna Campbell plays drums which set the tone for this impending sense of doom as the dancers move, seemingly without will, towards the underworld beyond the edge of the stage.

There are some very comical moments, and wonderful dialogue between Sangirardi and his ‘interpreters’. The music is used to great effect also. However, this means that the dance itself takes a minor part in the piece. Where movement and dance could add depth, or drive the narrative, there is much more reliance on music and description such that the talented dancers perhaps remain somewhat underutilised.

Goat continues the theme of dancing to death, but in a very different way. First performed in 2017, it is inspired by the work of Nina Simone. Angélique Blasco portrays a television host, who is presenting live from a room which is set up in appearance like any community centre or village hall. She is covering the events of the evening, which transpire to be a group meeting where a sacrifice must take place. A dancer has been selected to die and he must dance himself to death.

Blasco is entertaining, even as she represents the intrusive and constant presence of media in our lives and world events. She interviews members of the congregation to ask why they dance. When she is told by one dancer that his movements represent a ‘metaphorical need for expansion’, she, very matter of factly, notes that she ‘wouldn’t have got that’. These meta jokes about contemporary dance are incorporated well into the story.

However, like Cerberus, this reliance on dialogue and comedy unfortunately means that some of the depth and tone in the dance is not nearly as powerful as the exceptional dancers have the potential to deliver.

Rambert / Ben Duke-Death Trap is at Sadler's Wells until 25 November

Photo Credit: Camilla Greenwell

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